Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Hands Across the Water

Greetings and congratulations, Rob:About 4 yrs ago I organized, with some other concerned north Oakland residents, a similar and successful CEQA-EIR lawsuit against the City of Oakland and the BAAQMD to stop the East Bay Bicycle Coalition and the Bicycle Friendly Berkeley Coalition's crackpot scheme to shrink 2.5 miles of busy Telegraph Ave. down to one lane in each direction to install unnecessary bike lanes. We got an Alameda Superior Court injunction that requires Oakland to do a full EIR for the Telegraph Ave. bike lanes.Robert

2 Comments:

I live in North oakland and I don't see what you gained by fighting the bike lanes. There are bike lanes on the other ends of Telegraph Ave so it makes sense to include the middle section. I would not want to ride down that street considering the bad driving I see, though a lot of people do ride there. I think it is a shame the EIR is being used to stop projects that people disagree with whether or not they really cause enviromental damage. The West berkeley Bowl is an example of this along with building on exsisting empty lots. As I recall most of the people that opposed the lanes said side street traffic and the loss of left hand turn lanes were there concern. Once A.C transit BRT comes they will lose them anyway and it has an EIR. So what was gained?

Your assumption is that a project that involves bicycles gets a free pass and doesn't have to comply with the law, as if a bicycle project can't possibly have a negative impact on a city's environment. This is simply untrue. An EIR only stops a project temporarily while the project is evaluated and, if there are going to be impacts, some kind of mitigation can be proposed. In any event, if you are so confident that the Telegraph Ave. bike lanes can't possibly have any impact, why are you concerned? If you are right, surely the EIR will bear you out, right?